An online article criticising the role and treatment of models in Ireland has attracted widespread votes of approval on Twitter for its harsh critique of the industry and what it says about our national attitudes.

Rounding on “Amazonian-bodied” women posing in bikinis and lingerie in public to sell anything from chocolate bars to cars, the article was posted by Vice magazine and penned by Irish journalist Róisín Kiberd.

It discusses specific models at the top of the industry and the nature of their work, which Ms Kiberd says represents a problem of misogyny in Ireland, expressed in particular by the media.

“Irish models offer a brand of safe, self-reflexive misogyny – a silly woman is a sexy woman, one who showed up to the photo call but forgot to put on her clothes,” the piece says.

“Catholic guilt lives on in Ireland in strange ways; we can’t be seen to encourage pornography, so we give the bikini girl an excuse, putting a product in her hand to promote.”

Lingerie

Citing an example from a recent magazine, Ms Kiberd points to a well-known model posing in bridal lingerie beside a story on the perils of online porn.

“They’re by no means the biggest problem that Irish women have to contend with, but they are another misogynistic habit we’ve failed to kick; casual girl-bashing presented as wholesome fun. They’re a by-product of Catholic self-loathing.”

Models now offer a curious contradiction; moving from page three to page four and occupying an “uneasy cultural space” between the nation’s sweethearts and the butt of our jokes, she argues in a 1,500-word treatise.

The model’s mission is to be family-friendly, even in lingerie, and yet the goal is to make them look stupid. They are “flirtatious but amiably goofy”; a “wilfully oblivious sex object”.